Cheesy Challenge

This weeks challenge was cheese and boy oh boy was I excited. I am probably 25% cheese. I'd be more if coffee didn't take up so much of my physical make up and if being 25% cheese wasn't already so hard on the beach bod. I love love LOVE cheese. There are so many kinds I can't believe there's anybody who can really hate cheese, you just haven't tasted the one that's for you yet. Its incredibly versatile. You can have it hot or cold, as a flavoring or the main event in your dish, savory or sweet...there's always a place for cheese. I looked around the web for something unusual that I had never tried before with cheese and came up the adorable brazilian cheese bread. It's not like any bread roll you would normally imagine. It whips up in the blender in a jiffy like a batter and bakes into a chewy crispy savory morsel in muffin cups. Imagine a mochi, if you've ever had one, inside of a crisp crust and with the flavors of cheese and garlic blended in you won't want to reach for any butter. It looks plane jane boring white and unimpressively small but it will taste sinfully rich as is.

Brazilian Cheese Bread

1 egg
1/3 cup oil
2/3 cup milk (I used almond milk)
170 grams tapioca flour
66 grams grated cheese (use any kind you like, I used low fat shredded mexican blend)
1/2 tsp of salt (or more to taste)
1/2 tsp garlic powder

Add all ingredients to blender and blend until mixed. Simple! Fill muffin cups 2/3 full and bake at 375F for 20-25 minutes until bread has puffed up and is slightly golden. It will deflate a bit after removal from oven but have no fear, it tastes just as good. Best served warm. You can save the left over batter for baking the next day if you think you have too many. How great it that? I bake a few at a time as needed in the toaster oven.

Corn Challenge

Corn is one of those things I think of as pretty much perfect grilled and slathered with good butter. Nothing finicky, just simple goodness but when this corn challenge came up and I browsed through all the pictures and recipes online, I began to recall all the sheer variety of corn based things I've had over the years. Polenta cakes in many forms, grits, succotash, salsa, and bread. Corn might be best simple but it doesn't have to be simple. One of the best complicated forms of corn I've had over the years is tamales. They are delicious corny doughy nuggets full of goodness however I was unable to locate the much needed corn husks so I went for the next best thing, tamale pie! I was especially excited since its something I've never tried before and it turned out better than I hope. Bits of meaty goodness intertwined with spices and the sweetness of corn kernels under the crispy crust of cheddary corn bread. It's like a dream of comfort food heaven right?

Tamale Pie

(I will not give a recipe for the corn bread topping. Use your favorite.)

1.5-2lb pork shoulder
5 poblano peppers (roasted with skin removed and roughly chopped)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp celery seed
2 tsp oregano
1 cup small diced onion
4 cloves garlic minced
1 28oz can diced tomatoes
1 15oz can of corn
1 10oz box of frozen white corn kernel (defrosted)
1 16oz jar salsa verde
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Trim pork shoulder. Brown on all sides except the skin in a skillet over medium heat. Toss into crock pot with the peppers (I admit I subbed bell peppers except for one poblano because I am a spicy wimp but the poblanos add amazing flavor and should be used if possible), spices, onion, garlic, and tomatoes. Cook on low for 8-10 hours or until the pork is so tender it falls apart to your fork. Remove pork from crock and discard any clinging skin or fat. Using two forks, shred the pork. Drain the contents of the crock through a sieve. Add the onion, pepper, and tomato bits back into the pork. Puree the can of corn. Stir into the pork. Stir the salsa into the pork. Taste and season with salt as needed. Spread filling out in a 9 inch square pan. Layer on top the defrosted corn kernels, your favorite corn bread batter, and then the shredded cheddar cheese. Bake at 400F for 40-50 minutes on the lowest shelf until the top turns golden brown. Let cool for 10 mins before serving.

Strawberry Challenge

Its a little early here in the slowly thawing out northeast for really good ripe local strawberries so I turned to my frozen stores but what to make? I wanted to try something new and I REALLY wanted to try out my donut pan again. Who could say no to (mostly) guilt free donuts? Not me! Living as I do in the land of perpetually breakfast free items, I figured the perfect way to kick off a weekend morning had to be with some donuts. I scanned the web and pulled together a recipe I thought I would enjoy, meet the challenge, and ensure a limited amount of treadmill time. These are just fluffy light yet solid enough to pass for a real donut sans the crispier shell you would get with the genuine fried article (a small sacrifice) while being not too sweet and combined the classically elegant flavors of chocolate and strawberry. Best of all its peeeeeennnnnnnkkkkkkkk!

Baked Chocolate Donuts with Strawberry Icing

Donut:

1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup skim milk
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
4 tsp oil
2 tblsp cold coffee
1 tsp vanilla extract

Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. In your mixing bowl blend milk, sugar, egg, oil, coffee, and vanilla until combined. Add in the flour mixture and continue whisking until blended and smooth. Light oil the wells of your donut pan. Fill each well about 3/4 full. Bake at 325F for about 13 minutes. The donut should spring back when poked lightly.

Icing:

1 cup frozen strawberries
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp melted butter

Rinse off any ice from the strawberries and drain. Puree in blender. Mix together 1/4 cup puree, sugar, and melted butter. Icing should coat a spoon thickly but still be runny rather than goopy. Add more sugar if not thick enough, more puree if too thick. Place cooled donuts on a rack over a pan to catch drippings and brush icing on. Allow it to sit for 30 minutes to harden. This makes for an icing that is hard enough to touch but will easily crush if pressed by your finger.

New Discovery: Green Almonds

There are many amazing things to be discovered at a good market. One thing that I first heard of over a year ago and have been fascinated by the idea of is green almonds. They are just what they sound like. The immature almond in its fuzzy green fleshy shell before it becomes mature and hard. Now I've never been a huge fan of nuts but I never realized you could eat an immature one raw when its still wet and fleshy. Reality didn't quite pan out that way but at the same time was even more amazing. The shell was fuzzy and green but still more hard than fleshy. The inside nut was white with a clear gel like flesh and a pleasant crisp crunch rather than the harder more brittle one almonds usually bring to mind. There was almost no nutty taste but rather a very lightly tangy one. They are refreshing little nuggets. The season for green almonds is insanely short so if you get the chance, at least give it a try. Its not the best thing I've ever eaten but its certainly an experience I've never had the like of anywhere else.

Asparagus Challenge

OK so this was a slight failure in the log of experiments but that's the fun of cooking, even when it fails, it can be extremely tasty :) This week's food challenge was asparagus which is a personal favorite of mine I've cooked in a ton of different ways. The thing about asparagus is generally all you need to make it shine is to have a good product. Young fresh asparagus will be tender and delicious. If its old and woody, there's almost no cooking method that will save it bar soup and that's only because I strain the fibrous bits out of my soup. Since I've cooked asparagus in so many tasty ways over the years, for this challenge I wanted to try to improve some other aspect of my cooking skills: presentation. My food is often delicious, rarely pretty. In my mind I thought of a kind of upside down crustless quiche. Like the upside cakes, when you flip it over after cooking, it would have a beautiful pattern baked in to shine. I think the mushrooms I used in the quiche turned the egg a bit gray. It looked better BEFORE I flipped it over. Live and learn then eat your mistakes right? So if you try this, don't flip it over but by all means eat it. It was yummy!

Upside Down Asparagus Quiche

1/2 lb asparagus spears trimmed (by this I mean snap off the woody ends)
1.5 cup eggbeaters (or 6 eggs)
8 oz mushrooms sliced
1/2 cup shredded italian cheese
1 tsp dried minced garlic
2 tsp dried minced onion
2 tblsp sundried tomato slices
2 tsp italian seasoning
salt
pepper

Steam asparagus until tender. Trim to fit in a pretty sundial pattern (or whatever pattern you'd like) in a 9 inch cake pan. Reserve the cooked trimmings and any extra asparagus not used in pattern. Add sundried tomatoes to 1 cup of hot water and set aside to rehydrate.

Over medium high heat toss the mushrooms, garlic, and onion in a lightly oiled skillet until just the mushroom slices are just tender and soft. Layer on top of asparagus pattern in pan. Grind salt and pepper on to taste. Layer shredded cheese on top. In a blender whir reserved asparagus trimmings, egg beater, drained tomatoes, and italian seasoning until you get a thick puree. Pour gently into pan. Tap pan on counter to allow the egg to drip through.

Bake at 325F for 20-25 minutes until the center is just set. Let stand on cooling rack for 10 mins before cutting and serve warm.